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Abstract. Despite their small spatial extent, fluvial ecosystems play a significant role in processing and transporting carbon in aquatic networks, which results in substantial emission of methane (CH4) into the atmosphere. For this reason, considerable effort has been put into identifying patterns and drivers of CH4 concentrations in streams and rivers and estimating fluxes to the atmosphere across broad spatial scales. However, progress toward these ends has been slow because of pronounced spatial and temporal variability of lotic CH4 concentrations and fluxes and by limited data availability across diverse habitats and physicochemical conditions. To address these challenges, we present a comprehensive database of CH4 concentrations and fluxes for fluvial ecosystems along with broadly relevant and concurrent physical and chemical data. The Global River Methane Database (GriMeDB; https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/f48cdb77282598052349e969920356ef, Stanley et al., 2023) includes 24 024 records of CH4 concentration and 8205 flux measurements from 5029 unique sites derived from publications, reports, data repositories, unpublished data sets, and other outlets that became available between 1973 and 2021. Flux observations are reported as diffusive, ebullitive, and total CH4 fluxes, and GriMeDB also includes 17 655 and 8409 concurrent measurements of concentrations and 4444 and 1521 fluxes for carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O), respectively. Most observations are date-specific (i.e., not site averages), and many are supported by data for 1 or more of 12 physicochemical variables and 6 site variables. Site variables include codes to characterize marginal channel types (e.g., springs, ditches) and/or the presence of human disturbance (e.g., point source inputs, upstream dams). Overall, observations in GRiMeDB encompass the broad range of the climatic, biological, and physical conditions that occur among world river basins, although some geographic gaps remain (arid regions, tropical regions, high-latitude and high-altitude systems). The global median CH4 concentration (0.20 µmol L−1) and diffusive flux (0.44 mmolm-2d-1) in GRiMeDB are lower than estimates from prior site-averaged compilations, although ranges (0 to 456 µmol L−1 and −136 to 4057 mmolm-2d-1) and standard deviations (10.69 and 86.4) are greater for this larger and more temporally resolved database. Available flux data are dominated by diffusive measurements despite the recognized importance of ebullitive and plant-mediated CH4 fluxes. Nonetheless, GriMeDB provides a comprehensive and cohesive resource for examining relationships between CH4 and environmental drivers, estimating the contribution of fluvial ecosystems to CH4 emissions, and contextualizing site-based investigations.

 

The Global River Methane Database (GriMeDB) is a compilation of measurements of CH4 concentrations and fluxes for flowing water environments derived from publications, reports, data repositories, and other outlets between 1973 and 2021. Assembly of GRiMeDB was motivated by the goal of having a centralized, standardized resource to facilitate further studies of CH4 pattern and process in flowing water systems, upscaling efforts, and identification of tendencies in when, where, and how CH4 has been sampled in streams and rivers across the world. Thus, CH4 data are supported by concurrent observations (as available) of aquatic CO2, N2O, temperature, conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, organic carbon, and discharge, along with site data (latitude, longitude, elevation, and [as available]: stream order, elevation, channel slope, catchment size, and codes for distinct or disturbed channel types). GRiMeDB includes over 24,000 records of CH4 concentration and greater than 8,000 flux measurements from over 5,000 unique sites, most of which are resolved to the daily time scale. 

Basin-centric long short-term memory (LSTM) network models have recently been shown to be an exceptionally powerful tool for stream temperature (Ts) temporal prediction (training in one period and making predictions for another period at the same sites). However, spatial extrapolation is a well-known challenge to modeling Ts and it is uncertain how an LSTM-based daily Ts model will perform in unmonitored or dammed basins. Here we compiled a new benchmark dataset consisting of >400 basins across the contiguous United States in different data availability groups (DAG, meaning the daily sampling frequency) with or without major dams and studied how to assemble suitable training datasets for predictions in basins with or without temperature monitoring. For prediction in unmonitored basins (PUB), LSTM produced an RMSE of 1.129 °C and R2 of 0.983. While these metrics declined from LSTM's temporal prediction performance, they far surpassed traditional models' PUB values, and were competitive with traditional models' temporal prediction on calibrated sites. Even for unmonitored basins with major reservoirs, we obtained a median RMSE of 1.202°C and an R2 of 0.984. For temporal prediction, the most suitable training set was the matching DAG that the basin could be grouped into, e.g., the 60% DAG for a basin with 61% data availability. However, for PUB, a training dataset including all basins with data is consistently preferred. An input-selection ensemble moderately mitigated attribute overfitting. Our results indicate there are influential latent processes not sufficiently described by the inputs (e.g., geology, wetland covers), but temporal fluctuations are well predictable, and LSTM appears to be a highly accurate Ts modeling tool even for spatial extrapolation. 

The Global River Methane Database (GriMeDB) is a compilation of measurements of CH4 concentrations and fluxes for flowing water environments derived from publications, reports, data repositories, and other outlets between 1973 and 2021. Assembly of GRiMeDB was motivated by the goal of having a centralized, standardized resource to facilitate further studies of CH4 pattern and process in flowing water systems, upscaling efforts, and identification of tendencies in when, where, and how CH4 has been sampled in streams and rivers across the world. Thus, CH4 data are supported by concurrent observations (as available) of aquatic CO2, N2O, temperature, conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, organic carbon, and discharge, along with site data (latitude, longitude, elevation, and [as available]: stream order, elevation, channel slope, catchment size, and codes for distinct or disturbed channel types). GRiMeDB includes over 24,000 records of CH4 concentration and greater than 8,000 flux measurements from over 5,000 unique sites, most of which are resolved to the daily time scale. 

Stream water temperature (Ts) is a variable of critical importance for aquatic ecosystem health. Ts is strongly affected by groundwater-surface water interactions which can be learned from streamflow records, but previously such information was challenging to effectively absorb with process-based models due to parameter equifinality. Based on the long short-term memory (LSTM) deep learning architecture, we developed a basin-centric lumped daily mean Ts model, which was trained over 118 data-rich basins with no major dams in the conterminous United States, and showed strong results. At a national scale, we obtained a median root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 0.69oC, Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient (NSE) of 0.985, and correlation of 0.994, which are marked improvements over previous values reported in literature. The addition of streamflow observations as a model input strongly elevated the performance of this model. In the absence of measured streamflow, we showed that a two-stage model can be used where simulated streamflow from a pre-trained LSTM model (Qsim) still benefits the Ts model, even though no new information was brought directly in the inputs of the Ts model; the model indirectly used information learned from streamflow observations provided during the training of Qsim, potentially to improve internal representation of physically meaningful variables. Our results indicate that strong relationships exist between basin-averaged forcing variables, catchment attributes, and Ts that can be simulated by a single model trained by data on the continental scale.